Sighted: A Real Film Camera Used by a Real Person

[julianphotoart]

Strange how it has now become worthy of comment that yesterday I saw a regular normal person using a real film camera for a real purpose. Specifically, in Malibu (gotta love that) a mom was using a Leica M with a motor-drive and 35mm Summicron to simply take snapshots of her kids at their Karate practice.

 

[ch1]

Strange how it has now become worthy of comment that yesterday I saw a regular normal person using a real film camera for a real purpose. Specifically, in Malibu (gotta love that) a mom was using a Leica M with a motor-drive and 35mm Summicron to simply take snapshots of her kids at their Karate practice.

Yay! But....did you get a picture of her? Raris analougus photgraphis is an endangered species - kind of like those ivory billed woodpeckers! 😀

 

[ywenz]

No normal person would be caught using a Leica M.

She must be a photographer.

 

[Michael I.]

how hideously natural

 

[RayPA]

Strange how it has now become worthy of comment that yesterday I saw a regular normal person using a real film camera for a real purpose. Specifically, in Malibu (gotta love that) a mom was using a Leica M with a motor-drive and 35mm Summicron to simply take snapshots of her kids at their Karate practice.

Ha ha! Sounds like me! I haven't shot with my motor drive, yet, but the M is actually pretty well suited for the task, because it is quiet, and the VF helps to follow movement (my kid spars, so there's actual two person contact). Also, I'm usually fairly close to the action, without being intrusive at all. I can shoot 35, 50, 90, with 50 being about perfect. Plus, of course, the M excels in lower light environment. I typically shoot near wide (f1.4-f2) at 1/125 or 1/60. I'm the only taking pics though, which baffles me.


🙂

 

[XAos]

I like to think I'm normal. At least in the geometric sense of being orthogonal to the plane. 🙂

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

No normal person would be caught using a Leica M.

She must be a photographer.

She must be Abby. Abby Normal. 😉

 

[SteveM(PA)]

Man, you just never know WHERE she'll show up 🙂

 

[Ergo]

Since i came back to Leica a year ago,i hardly look at my D70.
Prints better,me better.

 

[dhartse]

I think if the digital zealots have their way, using a film camera will soon be grounds for commitment. Being crazy about rangefinders will have a whole new meaning. 🙂

Seriously, though, if you shoot film you have to be prepared to suffer through people telling you about how wonderful digital is and how once you switch you'll never go back to film.

Duane

 

[MarkB]

I ran into a guy shooting his M with Noctilux on Church Street in Burlington one day. Have you been out there lately Ben?

 

[VinceC]

>>No normal person would be caught using a Leica M.
She must be a photographer.<<

I think well-to-do Karate moms in Malibu have always been Leica's well-heeled target customers.

 

[aad]

I find a lot more people shooting film than I would have thought. When people see my IIIf, I only get "cool camera" type comments. I like that. I'm so lame.

 

[John Camp]

mmm...I think the key word in the original post might be "Malibu."

JC

 

[Mackinaw]

A few months ago, while at the Detroit Institute of Arts, I saw a guy walking around with a Leica M, which turned out to be an ala carte MP with a 50mm collapsible Summicron. I was carrying my regular production MP with Canon 50/1.2 and we spent a good twenty minutes talking and comparing notes.

We rangefinder-toting film-users are rare, but we're out there.

Jim Bielecki

 

[SDK]

At the Whole Foods grocery's Symphony store in Boston, sometimes the clerks comment on my M7, saying "Oh nice, is that an old camera?" Once a New England School of Photography student stopped me in the same store to ask about the camera, having heard from her instructors that "Leicas are the best."

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

At the Whole Foods grocery's Symphony store in Boston, sometimes the clerks comment on my M7, saying "Oh nice, is that an old camera?" Once a New England School of Photography student stopped me in the same store to ask about the camera, having heard from her instructors that "Leicas are the best."

I carry my black chrome M6 with me 90% of the time, but also carry my Contax IIIa. Women comment on the M6 a lot, that it's beautiful. Men, however, tell me how "handsome" my Contax is. "handsome" isn't a word I had heard frequently come out of men's mouths before (if you follow Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion", you'd know why that is interesting here in Minnesota).

 

[SteveM(PA)]

I carry my black chrome M6 with me 90% of the time, but also carry my Contax IIIa. Women comment on the M6 a lot, that it's beautiful. Men, however, tell me how "handsome" my Contax is. "handsome" isn't a word I had heard frequently come out of men's mouths before (if you follow Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion", you'd know why that is interesting here in Minnesota).

The women should be saying your M6 looks "strong."

 

[VinceC]

I carry one of my Nikons most of the time, usually without much comment other than maybe a "nice old camera." A month or two ago, I was taking the kids into an ice cream shop when a gentleman who looked to be about my age (40s) stopped and said "Is that a Nikon S?" It was an S3, but I figured he was close enough and told him it was. He said he'd had
Nikon S's years ago and regretted selling them and they had been really great cameras. I've never had someone in public actually recognize my cameras before. It was kind of interesting.

 

[amateriat]

What I think we sometimes forget is that rangefinders – particularly the sort we favor here – have long been in the minority. When I was still shooting with SLRs, it was SLRs I mostly saw, along with 126 and 110s, a few compact RFs and, yes, the one "oddball" with an M3/4 or perhaps a III (conveniently forgetting my photographic "salad days" running around with my Yashica RFs).

Now I'm an oddball. I think I can deal with it.


- Barrett